Monthly Archives: April 2018

To whatever reason you assign the absence of distance racing in American racing, do not blame the horses. Grumble about racing secretaries, fuss over the monocular view of super-trainers, or diss the Derby fixation of owners, but do not suspect the Thoroughbred of being ill-made for the job of racing over any distance at all.

That is not the case.

Other reasons, usually money, dictate that a great deal of attention is paid to things other than stamina and distance racing. That does not mean that stamina and distance potential are gone; they emphatically are not.

The genetic diversity of the breed means that staying horses can come from unexpected backgrounds, and a case in point is Order of St. George (by Galileo), winner of his 2018 debut in the Group 3 Vintage Crop Stakes at Navan racecourse in Ireland.

A winner in 11 of 17 starts, Order of St. George is a very high-class performer, was the winner of the Irish St. Leger and Long Distance Cup last year, and is expected to challenge for the Ascot Gold Cup later this year.

A son of the great stallion Galileo, Order of St. George would be a fancy stallion prospect like many other sons of Coolmore’s leading stallion, but Order of St. George is a serious stayer, not a speed horse nor an early-maturing sort who would have some chance of siring the quicker, more readily raceable stock that most owners want for their stables.

As a result, the breeding of stayers is more up to genetic chance than planning, and Order of St. George is an example of that himself. He is by Europe’s foremost classic sire, and the only European sire in the same class with Galileo as a classic influence was Coolmore’s other leading son of their great sire Sadler’s Wells, Montjeu.

Although a “classic” sire, Galileo gets a range of stock. Some are high-quality 2-year-olds; most come to their best form at 3 and later; some continue to upgrade long after and seem to prefer the most extreme distances of modern racing, which are conducted at around two miles.

Back in the days of yore in the 19th century, and especially in America, there was considerable racing at three and four miles, with the winner coming home the best in two of a potential three heats. The third would be a runoff between the two winners if one didn’t win both of the first two.

Even by today’s standards of dash racing (single heats), Order of St. George is an outlier, and that’s how most staying horses of high class would be evaluated on pedigree. The Vintage Cup winner is, for instance, out of a mare by the top-quality Mr. Prospector stallion Gone West. Most breeders and pedigree commentators would mark down Gone West as an influence for horses that perform best at a mile, and most people would expect that mating a Gone West mare with Galileo should result in a performer who might prefer the sharper side the classic spectrum, say in the range of nine or 10 furlongs.

That’s not what happened.

If we human beings could predict what the genes would do, it would eliminate an element of fun and interest in the game.

Another generation back, the second dam of Order of St. George is Storm Song (Summer Squall), the champion 2-year-old filly of 1996 when she won the G1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies and Frizette. The following year, she was still good, finishing third in the Kentucky Oaks and Ashland Stakes but also demonstrating she was not the dominant force she had been as a juvenile.

As a result, the logical expectation for the champion juvenile as a broodmare would be as a source for early maturity, speed perhaps at the expense of stamina, and so forth.

Instead, she is the second dam of the best staying horse in Europe.

Not everything in pedigrees is as contrary as this. Last weekend’s winner of the longest graded stakes in America, the G3 San Juan Capistrano at 1 ¾ miles, was Nessy, a dark bay gelding by Travers winner Flower Alley (Distorted Humor) out of the stakes winner Flower Forest (Kris S.).

Nessy is a full brother to last year’s G1 Canadian International winner Bullards Alley, who recently died, and to G2 stakes winner Karibu Gardens. All three have high class, and all three like some distance in their racing. Nessy and Bullards Alley are horses one wonders about in terms of their potential for the great international staying events like the Melbourne Cup or the Ascot Gold Cup.

But to compete regularly in races at two miles or longer, horses and their owners would have to leave the country because there is no domestic program for racing stayers.

This is a shame because the staying horses are right there in front of us. We just have to offer them the program to strut their stuff over the proper distances.

Victory in the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby brought the winner, Magnum Moon, to the top of the tree among Kentucky Derby prospects by classic points with 150. The handsome bay is bred to be a classic colt, with the 1992 Kentucky Derby early favorite A.P. Indy being his male-line grandsire.

In addition to winning the Belmont Stakes and Breeders’ Cup Classic, then being elected Horse of the Year, A.P. Indy has become a milestone, a marker of excellence, in breeding history. An exceptionally well-made and beautifully pedigreed animal, A.P. Indy sold to his fine looks, ran to the heights of expectation, and then delivered as a stallion of the highest caliber.

One of his acclaimed racing sons, however, is not the sire of Magnum Moon. Instead, the Arkansas Derby winner is by Malibu Moon, winner of a maiden special at Hollywood Park in the horse’s second start on May 31, 1999. He won by 1 ½ lengths over 5 furlongs on dirt in :57.41.

That is not the expected profile of a future top classic sire.

Yet Malibu Moon has been a success from the start, siring champion juvenile Declan’s Moon (G1 Hollywood Futurity) while standing in Maryland, then expanding his success with prominent national racing stars like Life at Ten (G1 Beldame Stakes), and such recent premium performers as Gormley (2017 Santa Anita Derby), Carina Mia (G1 Acorn Stakes), and of course 2013 Kentucky Derby winner Orb.

Especially after Orb’s success, Malibu Moon became one of the sires most strongly sought after at the sales, and so it proved with Magnum Moon.

Bred in Kentucky by Ramona S. Bass LLC, Magnum Moon was a popular colt at the sales and yet seems a “value buy,” perhaps in part due to his May foaling date, which many people still discriminate against.

Jacob West, bloodstock agent and racing manager for owners Robert and Lawana Low, found the bay son of Malibu Moon at the 2016 Keeneland September sale. West said, “We had made a big run at some colts in Book 1 but had gotten blown out of the water. So I started working through Book 2, and this colt was one of the top-rated colts in my mind.

“He was a May foal and wasn’t as forward in his maturity. But he was a nice representation of what a two-turn colt would look like when he grew up and filled out that big frame. He has worked out beautifully,” West concluded.

A good-looking yearling who sold for $380,000, Magnum Moon was a May 9 foal and is the third winner from three foals to race out of the unraced Unbridled’s Song mare Dazzling Song.

There is further good looks and good performance in the colt’s family because his dam is out of G3 stakes winner Win McCool (Giant’s Causeway). Win McCool is one of four stakes winners out of her dam, the stakes-winning Win Crafty Lady (Crafty Prospector). She produced G1 winner Harmony Lodge (Hennessy), as well as the full siblings Graeme Hall and Win’s Fair Lady (both by Dehere).

Graeme Hall was a high-class racer, winning the 2000 Arkansas Derby prior to that year’s Kentucky Derby, when the handsome chestnut was eased. Fortunately, Graeme Hall returned to race successfully, winning the G2 Jim Dandy at 3, then the G2 Eclipse Handicap at Woodbine and the G3 Stuyvesant Handicap at Aqueduct at 4. In all, Graeme Hall won 7 of 22 races, earning more than $1.1 million.

Now unbeaten in four starts this year, including the G1 Arkansas Derby and G2 Rebel, Magnum Moon has earned almost exactly the same sum as his Arkansas Derby-winning relation, with $1,177,800 in the account to date.

Over the past 50 years, American racing has become increasingly more compartmentalized, with “turf horses” and “classic horses” and “2-year-old speed horses,” as if horses do not transcend categories. And the most intense emphasis has come to be placed on the small cohort of classic horses, especially classic colts, because those have the potential to soar in value and prestige to a level that is giddy even to think about.

Just over a quarter-century ago, the prince of this particular set of elite Thoroughbreds was a grand bay by the name of A.P. Indy. Winner of the Grade 1 Hollywood Futurity at 2, A.P. Indy went on to become the favorite for the Kentucky Derby, only to be scratched just before the classic by trainer Neil Drysdale due to a sore foot.

The big horse with the big talent came back fine and won the Belmont Stakes, then the Breeders’ Cup Classic, and Horse of the Year. Along with his near-contemporary Unbridled (by Fappiano), this pair have dominated classic racing and performance through much of the next 20 years.

Empire Maker sired a pair of colts who went second in the Kentucky classic, and of those, the young classic stallion Pioneerof the Nile did the near-impossible and sired the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years, American Pharoah.

In addition, we regularly see up to a third of the field for individual classics made up by descendants of A.P. Indy, led by three-time top sire Tapit, sire of three winners of the Belmont Stakes; Malibu Moon, sire of Kentucky Derby winner Orb; and now Take Charge Indy, whose first crop of 3-year-olds includes Louisiana Derby winner Noble Indy.

The horse who is looking to take a piece of the classic pie from the Seattle Slew – A.P. Indy and Mr. Prospector – Unbridled clan is also a descendant of Mr. P.

By the Mr. Prospector stallon Smart Strike, Curlin is the hardest-working classic sire in America.

From his first crop came Belmont Stakes winner Palace Malice. From the third came Travers winner Keen Ice and Coaching Club American Oaks winner Curalina, as well as champion filly Stellar Wind; from the fourth came 2016 Preakness winner Exaggerator, along with Mother Goose winner Off the Tracks. From the fifth came 2017 Wood Memorial winner Irish War Cry.

This year, Curlin’s contingent has been even more dominating.

In the April 7 classic preps at Keeneland and Aqueduct, a pair of robust chestnuts added victories to resumes that buff their classic credentials to a pleasing shine. On Saturday in Kentucky, 2017 champion juvenile colt Good Magic won the G2 Blue Grass Stakes, and in New York, Curlin was represented by a second consecutive winner of the G2 Wood Memorial, Vino Rosso.

There is one more G1 classic prep, the Arkansas Derby on April 14, and Curlin’s son Solomini will be trying to take the points and the prestige at Oaklawn. His primary competitor is expected to be the unbeaten Magnum Moon (Malibu Moon), who defeated Solomini in the Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn last month.

With a string of successful performers like that, Curlin has had a hearty rise in demand for his services. From a high of $60,000 as a stallion entering stud in 2009, Curlin had dropped in fee substantially during the Great Recession, but the horse’s big winners on the racetrack have begotten sales successes, and those drive stud fees ever higher.

For 2018, Curlin stands for $150,000 live foal at Hill ‘n’ Dale. If one of the Curlin contingent is the victor in the Kentucky Derby on May 5, not to mention the subsequent classics, that figure is certain to rise for next year.

Bred in Kentucky by Fares Farm next door to Keeneland, Curlin is now 13, and from the rising tide of good stock by him, his best years should lie ahead.

The handsome chestnut is a muscular and deep-bodied individual who stands over a lot of ground. His best stock sometimes resemble him in type; others do not. This year’s classic crew of three chestnuts most resemble their famous sire, with the shiny red coat and robust physique of their sire.

In his own makeup, Curlin is cast more in the mold of his broodmare sire Deputy Minister and his quite large and quite successful sire Vice Regent (Northern Dancer), more than the medium-sized bay Smart Strike. Both sides of the family, however, contribute to class and to classic performance, and in that regard, Curlin is the model – par excellence.

If you threw a bucket of mud in my face, perhaps I’d run bucking down the stretch at Churchill Downs, like Thunder Snow (by Helmet) in the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby last year, but the handsome colt cast those memories aside as he raced to victory in the G1 Dubai World Cup on March 31.

Earlier on the same card, however, the colt with 2018 Kentucky Derby prospects swept to an overpowering 18 ½ length success in the G2 UAE Derby, won last year by Thunder Snow. Mendelssohn (Scat Daddy) had earned G1 brackets last year with victory in the 2017 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, and after that race, trainer Aidan O’Brien said, “We knew he was a real American dirt horse [on pedigree], but we didn’t want to stop the progression, so that’s why we left him on the grass as maybe he wasn’t ready” for a switch of surface last year.

The group at Coolmore do not rush headlong into serious decisions, and the choices of what to do with Mendelssohn were serious. He is a good-looking horse who was a star yearling, and if he made a major success on the racecourse, he would be very valuable at stud.

In keeping with a formal evaluation of the realities of racing and breeding at the highest levels, the trainer at Ballydoyle said, “We had it in our head that maybe we could train Mendelssohn for the Kentucky Derby especially now we have the trials at home.

So the process was started last year, with the recognition that Mendelssohn was better suited, at least potentiallly, to dirt, and then the option to try the Kentucky Derby trials in Europe (or Dubai) offered that potential to work on things without jumping the pond and doing everything in one lick.

For Mendelssohn’s 2018 debut, the dark bay colt went to the Patton Stakes at Dundalk on synthetic. This was a prep, not the Guineas, and the colt looked professional but not spectacular in winning his race by three-quarters of a length.

That race was a sufficient step along the path, however, for Coolmore to take Mendelssohn to Dubai, rather than keep him in Ireland for a local prep for the classic in Kentucky.

That was a positive decision because this good-looking young athlete has not been the quickest learner. O’Brien said, “He’s a bit slow mentally to grasp what’s required.”

Last year at Santa Anita, Mendelssohn had taken his race well, but “when he got his head in front he wasn’t quite sure what to do.” Still, the colt had the natural ability to win his race. O’Brien said, “We felt he was still a bit green, but he was learning and getting better all the time.”

The race at Meydan represented a two-fold challenge for Mendelssohn. First, the UAE Derby was his debut on dirt, and second, it is raced at the longest distance of any of the Kentucky Derby preps at a bit more than 9 ½ furlongs. If the colt had any issues with either the surface or distance, this race should have found him out.

The result surely outshone anything the Coolmore crew could have hoped for.

Mendelssohn led soon after the break, after three furlongs was clear of his competitors, and from there on, the dark colt drew farther and farther away. By the time he broke the beam at the wire, Mendelssohn was more than 18 lengths clear of his nearest pursuer, the Tiz Wonderful filly Rayya, and won the race in local record time of 1:55.18.

It was the sort of lopsided victory that is at once hard to evaluate and yet hard not to be swayed toward enthusiasm.

“He came forward lovely from his run at Dundalk a few weeks ago,” O’Brien said. “We weren’t sure how he would handle the distance, but you have to say he saw it out pretty well.

“He is naturally quick and has a lot of tactical early speed. He did it the hard way, but he did it so easily. He is very well bred, he has a great physique, and you can see why he cost the lads a lot of money at the sales. We will look forward to going to Kentucky with him now. He is a terrific horse, really very exciting.”

So, the good-looking colt with all the promise will be coming back to his birthplace in Kentucky and representing his breeders, owners and fans in the Run for the Roses.

Bred in Kentucky by Clarkland Farm, Mendelssohn is out of 2016 Broodmare of the Year Leslie’s Lady, by Tricky Creek. He is a half-brother to both champion Beholder (Henny Hughes) and to the highly regarded sire Into Mischief (Harlan’s Holiday), whose 3-year-old son Audible won the G1 Florida Derby on the same day as Mendelssohn’s success in Dubai.

Consigned by Clarkland to the 2016 Keeneland September sale, Mendelssohn sold for $3 million to the Coolmore partners.

Taken to Ballydoyle in Ireland for training and preparation, the colt broke his maiden in his second start but then finished off the board in the G2 Champagne Stakes at Doncaster after “he knocked himself coming out of the stalls,” according to rider Ryan Moore. In his fourth start, Mendelssohn was second to divisional leader US Navy Flag in the G1 Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket, then came to Southern California and captured the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf.

Moore assessed the UAE Derby result and the colt’s prospects: “He’s a horse with a lot of speed. He still feels like there’s more physical improvement in him. There’s more strengthening to come; he’s going to get better.”

March 24 was a smashing day for the A.P. Indy tribe, and it was most exceptional for the A.P. Indy son Take Charge Indy, a winner of the Grade 1 Florida Derby during his racing career who went to stud at WinStar Farm in Kentucky but who is now standing in Korea.

The Pulpit set of A.P. Indy, primarily through leading sire Tapit, shook the trees and gathered the fruit with their usual enthusiasm. Synchrony won the G2 Muniz Memorial at the Fair Grounds racetrack in New Orleans, and Madison’s Luna won the G3 Hutcheson at Gulfstream Park to remain unbeaten. Good Samaritan (out of a Pulpit mare) won the G2 New Orleans Handicap from the Tapizar horse Hollywood Handsome and the Tapit gelding Scuba.

Among the other sons of A.P. Indy, there were good results, including in the G2 Louisiana Derby, won by Take Charge Indy’s son Noble Indy, now a winner in three of his four starts. Second in the race was Lone Sailor, by the A.P. Indy stallion Majestic Warrior, and third was My Boy Jack (Creative Cause), out of a mare by the A.P. Indy stallion Mineshaft.

Take Charge Indy’s first crop of foals raced last year at 2, and the results were acceptable, not notable. But getting early juveniles is not the profile of the typical A.P. Indy stallion. Instead, they tend to sire stock that comes to hand at the end of their juvenile season, improves markedly through the first half of their 3-year-old form, and frequently continues to improve with maturation.

Noble Indy became the second graded stakes winner by his sire with victory in the Louisiana Derby; the other graded success came last month in the G3 Forward Gal Stakes at Gulfstream. C.S. Incharge won the Suncoast Stakes at Tampa Bay, and on Saturday, Split Time won the Maddie May Stakes at Aqueduct.

These are the four 2018 stakes winners by Take Charge Indy.

The tall, scopy son of A.P. Indy would be one of the “in-demand” sires in Kentucky this year, except that he is standing at Jeju Stud Farm in South Korea.

On Nov. 23, 2016, WinStar announced that the Korea Racing Authority had purchased Take Charge Indy with an “offer that was too good to turn down,” according to WinStar president Elliott Walden. After covering three books of mares at the farm, averaging 133 mares per book, taking the offer was not an easy call.

Reached in between sets of juveniles in-training at Fasig-Tipton‘s Florida sale, Walden said, “Financially, we had to take a look at the offer and make a judgment on the soundness of selling or not selling. Although the farm and the syndicate had supported the horse well, the commercial buyers were not as receptive. The horse’s yearlings tended to be big, kinda lanky horses that looked like they wanted two turns. With that type, the pinhookers weren’t strongly involved in buying them.”

In addition, Take Charge Indy was coming up to his fourth season at stud, and the fourth year of a young sire’s tenure at stud is always the most difficult because nobody wants to be stuck with foals from a sire that the marketplace has deemed “a failure.” When that happens to breeders, the options are to sell for less than the cost of production or to take the young animals home and race them. Neither is a happy business decision in most cases.

Bloodstock consultant John Stuart is a principal in Bluegrass Thoroughbred Services, and among their clients is “Merriebelle Stable, who owned a quarter of the horse,” Stuart said. “I brokered the horse for owner Chuck Sandford with WinStar.

“We liked what we got from the horse,” Stuart continued. “But the commercial market got it wrong on the stallion, for whatever reason, and I think the reason is that they were leggy and immature horses [as yearlings], which is typical of the sire line. As a result of the market taking it the other way, we went along with the deal to sell the horse but only because we knew there was the option to get him back if he was a star.”

Walden concurred: “The only way the deal was going to go through was for there to be a buy-back clause. It’s something that’s out there; it’s something we’re thinking about. But we’re not at a point of making a decision about that.”

Yet.

But the dark brown son of A.P. Indy has four stakes winners so far this year. He’s the leading sire among second-year stallions by 2018 earnings, and his half-brother, Travers winner Will Take Charge (Unbridled’s Song) is one of the favored prospects for leading freshman sire in 2018. Their half-sister is champion juvenile filly Take Charge Brandi (Giant’s Causeway), and the trio are out of the exceptional racemare Take Charge Lady (Dehere).

With all these considerations, bringing a horse back after a sale abroad requires the marketplace to reverse its assessment of a sire’s stock, and that is accomplished first on the racetrack, then franked by a positive reception in the sales ring.